The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to inter-subnet and intra-subnet roaming.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). A wireless network, for example a wireless local area network (WLAN), such as a Wi-Fi network (IEEE 802.11), may include an access point (AP) that may communicate with one or more stations (STAs) or mobile devices.
A WLAN may be made up of a number of subnets, each of which is associated with different network information (e.g., a different STA IP address, gateway IP address, gateway media access control (MAC) address, or gateway Internet Protocol (IP) address type). A STA may use the network information for a subnet to communicate with a gateway for the subnet. An AP in a subnet may be in communication with a network, such as the Internet, which may allow a STA or mobile device to communicate via the network (or communicate with other devices communicating with the AP). A STA or mobile device may communicate with a network device bi-directionally. For example, in a WLAN, a STA may communicate with an associated AP via downlink (DL) and uplink (UL). The DL (or forward link) may refer to the communication link from the AP to the STA, and the UL (or reverse link) may refer to the communication link from the STA to the AP.
In some cases, a STA may perform roaming in which the STA changes connection from one AP (a pre-roaming AP) to a new AP. Upon connection with the new AP, the STA may wirelessly retrieve the network information for the subnet of the new AP. In some cases, the new AP is in the same subnet as the pre-roaming AP (i.e., the STA has not changed subnets) and the pre-roaming network information is the same. In other cases, the new AP is in a different subnet than the pre-roaming AP and has different network information than the pre-roaming AP. In such cases, the STA may wirelessly retrieve the network information for the new subnet of the new AP.